"I enjoyed meeting Sister Nic. I'm sorry we didn't have longer to visit."

"So you could wrangle all my secrets out of her?"

She angled a glance his way. "Do you have more secrets?"

"You know more about me than anyone else, more than even Sister Nic since I never fessed up to the fertilizer incident."

Would she realize the importance of how much he'd told her? He'd charmed women for years, but Paige saw through his bull and demanded honest emotions. Scary, and, damn, he hoped she didn't push for more. He'd had enough for one night.

She turned her head to kiss his neck, a perfect mix of soothing and sexy. Kind of like her.

Her soft curves melding to his side spiked his temperature.

He couldn't have her tonight, but that didn't mean they couldn't have some fun, and maybe he would luck into one of her smiles along the way. "Tell me what your room looks like."

She grinned against his neck, a sensual caress of full lips he'd felt along more than his neck the night before.

"Surely I've left the door open enough for you to see in since you've been here."

"I didn't dare look because then I'd start walking toward you, and your brother would jam a shotgun between my shoulder blades."

She laughed as he'd hoped, shifting back to safer ground. "It's nothing fancy really, just delft hues."

"Delft?"

"A shade of blue."

"You'll have to be more specific since I have a Y chromosome."

"Very light blue, like your eyes."

"Got it. Blue walls." He tapped the swing back into motion, the chain creaking in response.

"With white trim." She traced the outside seam of his jeans from hip to knee. "I have an old blue-and-white flowered water pitcher of my grandmother's that sparked the look of everything else."

"What about the bed?"

"You've been wondering about my bed?" She skimmed her hand over his knee to the inside seam.

"Wondering about what you look like in your bed." He grazed the side of her breast with his knuckles, painful when it couldn't go anywhere, but more torturous not to touch her at all.

"It's a large four-poster, all white with a white chenille spread."

"Chenille?"

"Y chromosome again?"

"Definitely."

"It has fringe along the edges and kind of a bumpy woven pattern along the top." She worked her way slowly up the inside seam.

"Okay, note to self for future fantasies about a certain hot Dakota babe." He eyed the skyful of stars and fantasized about flying her somewhere deserted and making love out in the open. "Chenille sounds itchy to sensitive places. Toss the spread to the ground before crawling around n**ed with Paige on the bed."

Much more of this and he wouldn't be able to think. He stopped her trekking hand a scant inch from reaching a destination guaranteed to drain the last of his brain cells. He pressed a kiss to her palm and linked their fingers.

"Sounds like a great fantasy to me." She cuddled closer, her head against his shoulder as she fit to his side. "Thank you."

He didn't have to ask why. Oddly enough he knew she meant thanks for the smile, for holding her shaky hand while tears sneaked past her defenses, for coming back with her

— as if he would have even considered otherwise.

Her breathing slowed and evened out until she drifted off to sleep against him as she'd done the night before. Except, life had exhausted her tonight rather than lovemaking.

While she slept warm and soft beside him, Bo stared out at the moonlit dirt and rocks stretching endlessly along the dry plains. What once looked barren to him slowly shifted in his mind, stirring something inside him. No great, startling moment like when he'd realized why he did, in fact, date bimbos. This understanding came to him in a whispering moment as gentle as the caress of Paige's hand along his skin or the subtle scent of her flowery cologne.

She'd taught him to appreciate the understated. The kick he got from watching Kirstie bounce in the passenger seat of the Cessna beat pulling G forces in aT-38. Rock concerts he'd caught in Europe didn't come close to the thrill of hearing the musicality of Paige's laugh. Paige had taught him to appreciate the joy found in a puppy lying across your foot.

He stared out across Paige's front yard that two weeks ago had been nothing more than a dusty stretch of desolate land leading on into monotony. Now he saw the way the wind swayed the branches of the lone tree, tossing a swing that held more than a few memories for him.

The grass was still clumpy and the mosquitoes still chewed his hide, but thanks to Paige he couldn't deny his sense of pride in the heartland of his country. A country he'd sworn to protect with his life. Suddenly his job in the military wasn't about cool toys and adventure, or even about repaying some cosmic debt in honor of those who took him in as a kid.

It was about protecting this patch of stark beauty and the people who walked on it.

He'd come to North Dakota looking for answers from Paige, and he'd found them, just not in the way he expected. And instead of peace, he'd uncovered more problems, since he couldn't figure out how to reconcile his calling to the Air Force with the possibility of stepping into this family.

Chapter 15

Paige sidestepped the puddle left by a dog and swished the mop over the mess on the clinic floor. What a long damn day at work. Only Monday and yet the past weekend with Bo seemed forever away.

She chunked the mop back in the bucket and out again, slapping it against the scarred tile.

Certainly there hadn't been a chance to slip away together since she wasn't letting her daughter out of her sight. Through the open window, Paige watched Kirstie corral the puppies back into the kennel with Bo's help—and ever-watchful care.

Cops were searching for a workman named Eddie who might have made repairs at the school and the air show. He hadn't done enough to be arrested, but certainly could be picked up for questioning. And it would help knowing where to look for the threat.

The whole day had been surreal. She'd kept Kirstie home from school and close by her side at work. Vic was off in the truck on a call. Seth was at the doctor's after putting too much stress on his recently healed foot looking for Kirstie. Which left her manning the office and taking any fly-out calls with Bo and Kirstie. So far the day had been uneventfully exhausting, just routine exams, vaccines and a case of ear mites.

And an overexcited puppy leaving her a "gift" on the tile.

Paige swiped the mop along the floor, ammonia radiating up and watering her eyes. Bo's voice drifted through the window, closer, louder, along with Kirstie's as they finished rounds through the kennels to walk the dogs.

Of its own will, the mop seemed to swish, swish over the floor faster toward the open window and screen door. Bo and Kirstie settled on the top step, a lone puppy left out and resting on Kirstie's lap.

The little mutt Paige had asked Bo to name.

Kirstie cuddled the dog up under her chin. "Are you gonna take Honey back with you to Charleston?"

Even though she knew the answer to that question, more popped into Paige's mind. How much longer did they have left together before he went? Would she see him again after?

She couldn't envision how, and that made her eyes sting in a way that had nothing to do with ammonia. Her chin dropped to rest on top of her hands propped on the mop handle.

Bo stroked a knuckle over Honey's golden head. "I wish I could, but I can't."

"Mom says I can have one of the puppies. Would you be mad if I kept Honey?"

"I'd be glad to know she had a good home." He angled his head toward Kirstie, late-afternoon sun glinting off the slight curl to his dark hair. "And maybe I could see her sometime if I'm up this way."

"You'll be back?"

"I hope so."

Paige's fingers tightened around the wooden handle. How could she be so thrilled and terrified all at once?

"You still want to be my friend even after I puked on your boots and was kinda cranky when you were around at first?"

"Yes, Kirstie, I'd like to be your friend."

Kirstie hugged the puppy closer, her head dipping to nuzzle his furry softness. "I don't got many friends here."

Paige swallowed down the cotton-wad lump in her throat. Apparently, Kirstie had been holding in a lot of things to keep her mama from being sad.

"Moving can be tough."

"It's not 'cause of the move." She set the puppy back on her knees, flopping long ears back and forth with exaggerated concentration. "My daddy didn't die of the polio."

Paige straightened from her slouch against the mop, the conversation suddenly about far more than future dates. Part of her longed to burst out onto the porch and scoop up her daughter, but she feared an interruption would stop Kirstie cold.

 Please, please, Bo, handle my baby with care.

He reached to flop the puppy ears, too, which also happened to bring his scarred hand over Kirstie's smaller one. "I know, Cupcake."

"He, uh," she whispered, clearing her throat and starting again, "he died in jail because he was a bad man."

"So did my dad."

Whoa. Hold on. They'd spoken about his father, and Bo never mentioned this. Why?

Something to ask him about later, but right now she needed to focus on her daughter.

"Your daddy died in jail? How come?" Kirstie asked the question hammering in Paige's mind.

"He stole cars." Muscles rippled along his shoulders with tension under the thin cover of his well-washed cotton T-shirt. "The last time he did it, he killed someone so the police sent him back to jail for good."

"Did somebody shoot him, too?"

"He had a heart attack."

"Oh." In profile, she squinted her brown eyes behind her glasses, canting closer to him.

' You don't look like your daddy was a bad guy."

"Neither do you."

"Thanks."

"And thank you."

Kirstie went back to flipping Honey's ears with extra focus as if weighing her words. "My mama used to say I got my daddy's nose, back when she used to talk about him. What if I got other parts of him, too?" Her voice went soft again as her hands fell away from the puppy. "The monster parts."

Pain knifed through Paige like a contraction in her midsection where she'd once carried this child close to her heart. She propped the mop against the wall before she dropped it.

Her feet pulled her closer to comfort her daughter, even as she knew she should stay back.

"Trust me. You don't." His voice stayed gentle, but surety rang through that even a kid couldn't miss. Paige stopped at the screen door behind them, her hands pressed to the mesh.

"How can you be so sure? Grown-ups tell lies, you know. My daddy said he loved me.

But if he really did, then he should have loved me enough not to do stuff that would make him go to jail. He shouldn't have hurt those other people."

"You're right," Bo answered with surprising frankness.

"I am?" Kirstie's cupid mouth dropped open as she looked up at Bo. "You're not going to tell me my daddy really loved me and I shouldn't worry about grownup stuff?"

Like Paige had said for a year. Her forehead fell to rest against the metal frame of the screen door.

"The way I see it, Cupcake, you already have to deal with grownup stuff, so I'm going to explain this to you in a grownup way. Think you can handle that?"

She nodded, eyes wide and somber. Side by side, Kirstie and Bo sat, looking so much like a father and daughter it hurt Paige's eyes to see their twin shadows stretch down the steps.

"The way I figure it, there are two kinds of love. There's the kind where, sure, people say they love you, and they do. Except, what they want is more important to them than what you need."